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The Origin of Antisemitism First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon THE ORIGIN OF ANTISEMITISM III “Five Primary Sources” **** In their provocative book entitled Why the Jews, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin identify five primary sources of antisemitism: (1) Belief in the Oneness of God (ethical monotheism); (2) adherence to a specific set of laws and teachings to govern life (Torah); (3) identification with the people and nation of Israel (Jewish Nationhood); (4) their claim to be “the chosen people of God” (chosen-ness); and (5) their higher quality of life (exemplary achievement), have all challenged, and even threatened, the gods, laws, and culture of non-Jews among whom they have lived throughout history. Let us look at each of these sources of antisemitism. Ethical Monotheism In the ancient world, every nation worshiped its own gods and acknowledged the legitimacy of others’ gods—except the Jews. The Jews declared that the gods of other people were “nonsense” and that only their God existed as the creator of all things. Furthermore, it was their God had who had decreed the moral law by which they and all others were expected to live. Is it any wonder that non-Jews have resented this theological and moral challenge ever since? When the Christian church was born out of Judaism, it did so embracing the God of the Jews, but it also insisted on the divinity of Jesus, thereby compromising Jewish monotheism and inviting Jewish rejection of Jesus as “the divine Son of God.” This ignited the virulent antisemitism of the Christian church which continued throughout the centuries. This is a case where the Jews wound up suffering from their own invention—but they have never given it up. Ethical monotheism is, after all, one of the essential components that makes Jews Jewish. Law and Teachings The component of Judaism that concretized the Jewish challenge is the Torah, or “the law and teachings” of Judaism. It is what put the Jew’s beliefs into action. The first aim of Jewish law is to have Jews publicly express their affirmation of God and denial of other gods through their daily actions, undeterred by fear of injury from any source—even death. But the law goes further. The 613 laws ascribed to the Torah and the oral legal tradition legislate every aspect of the Jew’s life. These laws are meant to ensure that all Jews put into practice their beliefs and ethical values and observe the sanctity, ritual, dietary and dress requirements that set them apart from their neighbors. By following all of these laws, Jews looked, acted, dressed, ate, worshiped and talked differently from their non-Jewish neighbors, making socializing with any but “their own kind” difficult if not impossible. A dubious way to make friends and influence people. In the Christian world, Jewish law, along with their rejection of Jesus, was the major source of contention between nascent Christianity and Judaism, leading Paul to write: “A man is put right with God only through faith and not by doing what the law 1 First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon commands” (Rom. 3:28), and furthermore, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Gal. 3:10). Jewish Nationhood The nationhood of the Jews is a perplexing aspect of Judaism since one normally associates a national group with a land and a state, yet for nearly two thousand years the Jews lived without either. In addition, the Jews constitute the only group in the modern Western world that is both an ethnic group and a religion with which both religious and committed secular Jews identify. During the age of religion, the Jews were offered equality on the condition that they abandon their religion and convert to the majority religion. When the modern age of nationalism began, they were to disavow any commitment to Jewish nationhood and assume the national identity of the nation they lived in, as the following statement, made in 1789, suggests: “There cannot be one nation within another nation.” Even though Jewish law declared that “the law of the land is the law,” the Jews still had to abandon their Jewish national identity; that was the price of emancipation. Jewish Chosen-ness The early Christian Church took the idea of biblical “chosen-ness” so seriously that it quickly adopted the belief that the church had become “the new Israel” and appropriated the divine election of the Jews unto itself. Both Christianity and Islam loved and believed in the idea but hated the Jews for continuing to claim it for themselves. Even though the notion of chosen-ness has nothing to do with Jewish superiority and privilege and everything to do with servanthood and responsibility, antisemites are quick to point to it as reason for their hatred of the Jews. Jews have believed themselves chosen of God to spread ethical monotheism to the world and to live as a moral “light unto the nations” (Isa. 49:6). All other meanings imputed to Jewish chosen-ness are not Jewish. Despite this, a recent University of California Five Year Study of Antisemitism in America revealed that 59 percent of Americans believe that “Jews still think of themselves as God’s chosen people.” Because of such negative reactions, some Jews have called for elimination of this belief from Judaism and many others no longer believe that they constitute a divinely chosen people. In addition to the above five sources, Prager and Tellushkin point out that “In nearly every society in which the Jews have lived for the past two thousand years, they have been better educated, more sober, more charitable with one another, committed far fewer violent crimes, and have had a more stable family life than their non-Jewish neighbors. These characteristics of Jewish life have been independent of Jews’ affluence or poverty.” (p. 30). Since its inception, Judaism has made study a religious obligation for its adherents. Unlike Christianity, for example, which, until the Protestant Reformation, required only its clergy to study, study among the Jews was not only a commandment but, along with charity, the supreme commandment. The biblical injunction “you shall teach your children” (Deut. 6:7) was translated two thousand years ago into a system of universal education. The purpose of this education was not to achieve professional and financial success, but to understand what God required of human beings. Thus, study was obligatory even when it was financially disadvantageous. Every Jew is under an obligation to study Torah, whether he is poor or rich, in sound health or ailing, in 2 First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon the vigor of youth or very old and feeble. This Jewish passion for study in turn helps to explain why Jews have the highest income of any ethnic group in the United States. It has also been the source of envy which has fed a virulent antisemitism. 3 .
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